Talk:Battle of Yonkers/@comment-5432551-20171118221326/@comment-38571899-20190219044328
The mistakes / implausibility go well beyond Land Warrior (and describing it in a manner that's not at all how it was intended to operate - it was not an "open channel" for individual soldiers to broadcast to everyone else). Brooks fails to understand how modern artillery works. He throws in gibberish about a "balloon effect" that he claims would kill people but not hurt zombies. In fact, against open exposed targets (e.g., zombies), any reasonably competent modern army would use airburst artillery shells, which detonate several meters above the ground and spray fragments over a wide area. As that description makes clear, plenty of fragments hit the heads of targets. A massed, slow-moving horde that doesn't take cover, doesn't wear helments, and is in fact drawn toward the noise of explosions is a dream target for such a weapon. If Brooks is internally consistent at all, then zombie susceptible to rifle fire kill shots to the head are also extremely susceptible to artillery fire. And the weapons described in the book have ranges of 10+ miles (M109) or 20+ miles (MLRS), plus of course the military has absolute air superiority for purposes of reconnaissance and observation. As for "Cold War doctrine", the stupidity shown by the military at this battle doesn't really fit that doctrine, nor any other consistent doctrine. U.S. military Cold War doctrine included the concepts of defense in depth and maneuver, neither of which were apparent at all in the depicted Battle of Yonkers. It instead appears to be a static defense concept, implemented in a tremendously stupid manner: for example, no use of relatively simple barriers (barbed wire, Jersey barriers, etc.) that would be effective in slowing or channeling zombies. And, in either case, doctrine would dictate having on hand massive quantities of ammunition (particularly for artillery and machine guns). The underlying problem for the book is that a modern military would, in a set piece battle, inflict absolutely massive casualties on a zombie horde if it has enough ammunition. Plus zombies move slowly enough, and artillery starts engaging at a sufficient distance, that orders to fall back should logically occur in advance of being overrun. And, given that a mechanized force with tanks and tracked APC's can simply run over zombies if necessary, it's also tough to see how it would get into a position where it can't force its way out of immediate danger. This notion does depend on the military understanding the basic "rules" of zombies: that they need to be killed (i.e., aren't just "sick people" to be detained so they can recover) and that damage to the brain/head is the way to do it. In the book, the U.S. military had logically reached that point due to prior actions, such as the use of Special Forces teams to kill the infected in small outbreaks. I think the more plausible way to depict a World War Z type scenario is for societal breakdown to progress to the point that the military is rendered ineffective for large-scale operations prior to any big set piece battle(s), perhaps in part due to a failure of many people to accept that their relatives and friends are transformed into zombies and not merely "sick".